I Think I'm Singing Japanese: Pronunciation help needed!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Wasn’t sure if this belongs in Cafe Society or here or elsewhere, so I’m going with here and if it needs to be moved, that’s okay.

I’m a music major in college concentrating in voice. I’m in my senior year and so far I’ve sung in Italian, German, French and Spanish (as well as English, of course). I took Spanish for 6 years of school, a diction course in Italian and German, and got help in French from a friend, but now…

I’m singing in Japanese. “Two Traditional Japanese Songs”, in particular, arranged by Samuel Adler. I’ve got a vague idea of how to pronounce the words, but I’m not absolutely certain, and the books I’ve found on the subject are woefully small and not very informative. So I thought you guys could help me out. I’l post the lyrics here, and if a Japanese speaker could give me the best pronunciation, that would be fantastic.

The score I have seems to have the words syllabized oddly, and I’m not exactly certain sometimes if it’s correct in where the words begin and end, so I’m going to write it out in the musical phrases, with hyphens where there are hyphens in the score, indicating those syllables are part of the same word, and spaces where there are spaces.

The first song is titled “Komori Uta.”

Na ku-na-yo-shi yo-shi
Nen ne-shi na.
Ya ma-no ka-ra su ga Na-i-ta-to-te
Na-i-cha i-ke na-i
Nen ne-shi-na
Na-ke ba ka-ra su ga
Ma-ta sa-wa-gu.

As I’m not sure of the word divisions, here’s what they say for a translation, if it helps: "Don’t cry, hush hush. Go to sleep. The mountain’s crows will begin to make a noise. You must not cry. Go to sleep. If you cry, the crows will begin to make noise again.

The second song is called “Akai Kutsu”

A-ka-i-ku-tsu Ha-i-te-ta
o-n-na no ko
I-jin-san ni Tsu-re-ra-re-ti it cha ta.
Yo-ko-ha-ma no Ha-to-ba-ka-ra
Fu-ne ni not te
I jin san ni tsu re-ra-re-te it chat ta.
A-ka-i ku-tsu mi-ru ta-bi
ka-n-ga-e-ru
I-jin san-wo mi-ru-ta-bi
o-mo-i da su.

See what I mean about the weird hyphenization? The translation for this one says “Red shoes, worn by a little girl, a foreigner took her away. At Yokohama’s harbor she boarded a ship. The foreigner took her away. Red shoes, every time I see them, I think about her. Ever time I see a foreigner I’m reminded of her.”

So… if anyone could help me out, it would be much much appreciated. Thanks!

2

I don’t know a thing about singing in Japanese, but I do speak it a bit. So with that caveat:

Japanese pronunciation is pretty simple, really. There are five vowel sounds: a, i, u, e, o. Pronounced ah (father), ee (key), oo (halfway between too and good), eh (pen), and oh (go).

Pronounce each syllable independently.

If there are two vowels in a row, such as a-i, they’ll get glided together and sound close to “eye.”

There’s no w is Japanese; that’s an oo-sound glided onto the front of another vowel.

The Japanese “r” sound isn’t like the r in English; it’s a sort of mix of r and l and a little bit of d. Imagine how the Queen of England might call a particularly succulent crumpet “veddy veddy good”; that’s pretty close.

Finally, if you’ve got a repeated consonant other than n, hit it pretty hard with a very slight pause before it: Rop-PON-gi.

I hope someone else with more fluency will come along shortly, but that should get you started.

3

And to clarify: The above relates Japanese pronunciation to American English pronunciation. Well, except for that bit about the Queen.

4

Vowels are said as the following:

a is like the a in father, but short
i is like the ee in keep
u is like the u in lute, but without rouding your lips
e is like the e in prey
o is like the o in toe except short

All syllables are given the same amount of time. Here’s a webpage that supposedly has the sound of each syllable, but I don’t have sound at work, so I can’t be sure. It’s worth a shot. http://www.jinjapan.org/kidsweb/language/hiragana.html

5

Oh yes, the r sound. The best I’ve ever heard it described is it is said like the t in water. Softened, almost a D sound.

Jackelope covered the rest fairly well, I think.

6

only thing i’d add is that the “it” in the "it chat ta"s in the 2nd song need to be treated as if the c is doubled and then do what jackelope said. so it’s kind of it-<build up but don’t explode yet>-CHAT-<build up again, but less>-TA

7

May I hijack this slightly and issue a polite request that you think about NOT singing the second song?

Distrust of foreigners in Japan is still rampant, and it is something that I and my friends have to contend with on a daily basis, particularly men. To sing about a foreigner abducting a little girl is not helpful.

I am sure that as (I presume!) you will be singing this at college, and not likely in front of a large audience of anyone connected in any way with Japan, that in real practical terms it doesn’t matter at all. I know that it is an old song but we wouldn’t sing old racist songs in the USA or the UK any more, would we?

I have debated writing this, as I don’t want to be seen to be critical or oversensitive, but since I read this thread a few hours ago, I have been feeling miserable and need to ask this of you.

Discrimination here is subtle and pervades all aspects of our lives. I have fairly good friends here and then am pulled up short suddenly by something they do and say that shows how little I am actually trusted. (Most recent example, excluding my kid from a carpool because a) they couldn’t take responsibility for a “foreign” kid - my boy has a Japanse father, and b) that they couldn’t trust me with their kids.)

In case you are thinking that I am overreacting or that this is just something that I personally experience, read this news article and see what you think now. The boys in the case is nine years old, and he has been made suicidal by his elementary school teacher. His crime? He had an American great-great grandfather.

I don’t know how to post a link properly so forgive the cutting and pasting…

http://www.japantimes.com/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20031009a5.htm

8

Oh! The link works!

Wonders will never cease…

9

A quick and dirty hint I got once from someone who was trying to help me get pronunciations right, even though I wasn’t really learning the language, is that you can pronounce the vowels pretty much like you would in German. I found this a far more useful comparison than English, as I’ve never really learned anything about English phonics in the way that others have listed here, but I could get the German comparision as I had to learn the phonics as a second language, not a native one.

10

[nitpick]

In the third line,

“I-jin-san ni Tsu-re-ra-re-ti it cha ta”

should be

“I-jin-san ni Tsu-re-ra-re-te it chat ta”

Which is the same as the sixth line.

[/nitpick]

11

Thanks for the help guys, the vowel stuff is pretty much what I got from the books I was looking at, and I’m pretty used to the flipped Rs and such from other languages. It doesn’t seem like a very hard language to pronounce, really. What I would really like is if someone could help me with the syllabalization, that is, help me figure out if the syllables connected by hyphens are really all one word, and the ones separated by spaces are separate words, or if the person who transcribed the lyrics into the score was on crack. Also help with stresses would be good. I believe I read that there is pretty much no specific stress rules and syllables are generally stressed the same throughout, so I’ve pretty much been going with the rhythm of the music as far as stresses go. Also, in the second song there are two spots where “n” has it’s own syllable. Is that just a closed consonant n sound for that note, then?

Hokkaido Brit - That’s terrible, and I’m very sorry you have to deal with all that. Rest assured that the only place I’ll be singing these songs is in masterclass for the other people in my voice studio and for the voice faculty at my jury at the end of the semester. I do understand your concern, but the songs are sort of a set, so if I drop one I’d have to drop both, and it’s halfway through the semester which would be pretty late to pick up two new songs. I’m sorry the situation there is so bad, I really didn’t know. But I promise when I do end up singing the songs I’ll try to explain a little bit about those crappy attitudes.

Sublight - Okay… I don’t know any Japanese beyond some random terms usually heard in connection with anime, so I just wrote what it says in the score. I just double-checked and it does have them as different. But I think if I tell my voice prof that someone who actually lives in Japan told me they’re supposed to be the same, he’ll deal. Thanks.

12

Antares, if you just add a sentence to your recitation (is that what you say for singing? I am an ignoramus!) then the battle against this bit of ignorance is won, thanks.

About the ‘n’ sound as a separate syllable, it is always separate, So if you asked a Japanese person how many syllables there are in “Nihon”, which to us sounds like there are two, they would say three - “Ni”, “ho” and “n”. When speaking this doesn’t matter much even to native speakers, but they do take note of it when singing or reciting poetry.

Pickily, in your song, the “jin” and “san” of your Ijin-san song should be separated too, like the “o-n-na” in the same song. But it probably didn’t scan with the music, so a bit of artistic licence was taken!

13

“What I would really like is if someone could help me with the syllabalization, that is, help me figure out if the syllables connected by hyphens are really all one word, and the ones separated by spaces are separate words, or if the person who transcribed the lyrics into the score was on crack.”

OK, having criticised your songs, I’ll now try to be constructive!

Na ku-na-yo-shi yo-shi
Nakuna (don’t cry) yoshi yoshi (there,there, said when patting a kid’s back or head. Prounounced when speaking like yosh, yosh)

Nen ne-shi na.
Nenne shina (go to sleep - you need to pronounce both the 'n’s)

Ya ma-no ka-ra su ga Na-i-ta-to-te
Yama no (of the mountains) karasu (crow, stress is on the ‘ra’) ga Naita to te (naita is cried, the ending particle I don’t understand.)

Na-i-cha i-ke na-i
Naicha ikenai (You must not cry, stress in naicha is on the “i” )

Nen ne-shi-na
Nenne shina (go to sleep)

Na-ke ba ka-ra su ga
Nakeba, karasu ga (if you cry, the crows will… nakeba stress is on the ‘na’ karasu stress is on the ‘ra’)

Ma-ta sa-wa-gu.
Mata sawagu (again caw. Mata stress is on the ‘ma’ sawagu stress is on the ‘wa’)
The second song is called “Akai Kutsu”

A-ka-i-ku-tsu Ha-i-te-ta
Akai kutsu haiteta (red shoes wore. Akai stress is on ‘kai’ kutsu on ‘ku’ haiteta on ‘i’)

o-n-na no ko
onna no ko (woman, possesive particle, child. onna stress is on ‘n’)

I-jin-san ni Tsu-re-ra-re-ti it cha ta.
Ijin san ni tusrerareteitchatta (foreigner mister by ‘was gone and taken away by’. Ijin stress is on ‘ji’ san stress is even tsurerareteitchatta ooooh, difficult! Let’s say, evenly stressed syllables to ‘cha’ which is heavily stressed, followed by a glottal stop then ‘ta’)

Yo-ko-ha-ma no Ha-to-ba-ka-ra
Yokohama no hatobakara (Yokohama, possessive particle, not sure if this should not be hatobaraku which would mean work - hatobaraku kuruma for example are working cars like fire engines and trucks etc.)

Fu-ne ni not te
Fune ni notte (boat in embarked, fune stress is on ‘fu’ notte stress is on ‘no’ followed by glottal stop then ‘te’)

I jin san ni tsu re-ra-re-te it chat ta.
(Same as previous line the same)

A-ka-i ku-tsu mi-ru ta-bi
Akai kustu miru tabi (red shoes see whenever. Akai kutsu stress as above, miru stress on ‘mi’, tabi on ‘ta’)

ka-n-ga-e-ru
kangaeru (I think, stress on ‘ga’)

I-jin san-wo mi-ru-ta-bi
Ijin san wo miru tabi (foreigner - old word that is not used now- mister - particle indication object, see whenever. all stresses as indicated before)

o-mo-i da su.
omoidasu (remember, stress on ‘moi’)
Whew! Is that what you wanted? Will it help you?

What you really need is a native Japanese speaker to read it onto a tape for you. Is there no-one in your college who qualifies?

Good luck with this and tell us how it went!

14

That is fantastic, Hokkaido Brit! Thank you so much! That is extremely helpful. Now I see either Samuel Adler, who arranged my versions of the songs, or the person who transcribed the lyrics into the score, was completly on crack, as they’ve got all sorts of syllabization screwups, as well as screwing up that tsurerareteitchatta (and damn is that a big freaking word!). Knowing what actual words I’m singing instead of a big jumble of syllables will make it so much easier to memorize and to sing with feeling, as well!

Actually, now that you mention it, I think we’ve got a Japanese exchange student somewhere in the department, I think she’s a piano major. I’ll see if I can track her down and talk to her.

Thank you so much, again!